Enabling diverse learners to develop essential Chumash skills

Introduction

21st Century tools enable educators to engage more students than ever before in an

effective and fun fashion. Using a Blended Learning model, Heivanti is designed to

strengthen the irreplaceable power of live teacher-to-student engagement while

introducing unparalleled levels of differentiation and unmatched one-to-one attention

into traditional upper school Judaic Studies.

The Heivanti Method

As a Modern Orthodox Day School, it is our goal at Columbus Torah Academy to

produce lifelong Torah learners. Achieving this goal entails 2 key foci; enabling our

students to independently read and decipher Chumash and its commentaries together

with engendering the sincere desire to do so.

Much effort is invested in thoughtfully constructing the scope-and-sequence and

selecting the best curriculum in order to provide our students with the opportunity to

accomplish this vital goal. On the other side of the equation, however, lies the critical yet

elusive component; the students themselves. How can we assure the highest

percentage possible of student accomplishment?

The following is one approach to differentiation that is uncommonly individualized,

relatively easy to implement and offers unparalleled levels of accountability and

formative feedback.  

Differentiation in Both Skills & Comprehension

To ensure every student is receiving the most that they can of what we are providing

them, Heivanti takes advantage of several modalities of learning. Rabbi Netanel Gralla’s

rotational design that he employed Yeshivat HeAtid serves as an exemplary model for

lower school.  In efforts to conquer this holy ground in the middle and high school,

Heivanti is the synergy of traditional Torah learning goals and several powerful 21st

Century tools.

The model works with the premise that the ability to read and comprehend our Heritage

from its primary sources is priceless and indispensable. As such, the Heivanti method

endeavors to offer every student the ability to develop the fundamental textual,

analytical and comprehension skills necessary in developing independent, lifelong

learners.

General Program Overview:

DIFFERNTIATED PROCESS

Students are empowered to master the material at their own pace and preferred learning styleThe teacher is availed to offer one-on-one attention

DIFFERENTIATED CONTENT &

SKILL-BUILDING Methodical introduction and mastery of new material and skills through formative and summative assessment Tailored expansion, reinforcement and mastery of fundemental skills through spiraling review

SUPPORTIVE & CHALLENGING

LEARNING ENVIRONMENT

Regular processing of the storyline, ensuring comprehension through immediate feedbackFacilitating higher-order thinking and affect through creative writing

The Procedure in a Detail

Step 1 - The Lesson:

A typical lesson would develop as follows: the teacher learns the material together with

the whole class. This allows the teacher to provide a hook, solicit penetrating questions

and properly engage the class in the way only possible via a live teacher.

All classrooms begin and progress effectively up to this point. In a standard classroom,

however, most teachers are now faced with an impasse; the top of the class is ready to

move on, the middle of the class could use a thorough review and the bottom of the

class is still working on a basic understanding.  This unavoidable need to differentiate

instruction is the opportunity addressed by step 2:

Step 2a - Review & Differentiated Process:

After this learning the selection of

verses or commentary one time

thoroughly, students independently

chose to either review individually,

in pairs or listen to a short

recording of the lesson that is

available on our VoiceThread page

(via headsets and laptops, Chromebooks, smartphones, etc.).

The recording option is most beneficial for the weaker students in the class. They can re-listen to the short lesson as many times as they need until they feel

completely comfortable with the content without having to feel embarrassed or guilty for slowing down the class. The stronger students, on the other hand, can proceed directly to the assessment (see below) rather than waiting unengaged.

Accountability and Formative Feedback:

Regardless of their preferred process and pace, all students are accountable to record

themselves reading the selection on our VoiceThread page. Students that finish earlier

are either provided supplemental work or allowed to begin the homework selection in

class. (Recording themselves on VoiceThread is often the assigned homework.)

With incremental recordings of each student’s reading, fluency and understanding, the

VoiceThread component offers unprecedented evaluation and feedback. One of the

most poignant yet unexpected benefits of VoiceThread is that students and parents can

literally watch their steady progress throughout the year. Comparing the recordings from

September to those in May, students can see in a real and powerful way how much they

progressed over the school year.

Asking students to read out loud is asking them to be vulnerable. To address this

sensitivity, students can opt to keep their VoiceThread recordings private between them

and the teacher. (Parenthetically, the author has found that students have a great time

making their recordings and very much prefer listening to each other. Predominantly,

they make their recordings public and even ask to share them during class time as an

incentive.)

Step 2b - 1-on-1 Attention:

For the duration of the review

component, the entire classroom is

actively engaged.  The teacher is now

completely available to offer

personalized attention to individual

students in the form or support,

supplementation or assessment. With

all the differentiation interventions

available to us, nothing will ever

compare to individualized attention.

Devoting personalized attention to

The challenge with individualized

attention is that it usually comes at the

expense of the rest of the class or at

the cost of additional time outside of

the classroom. With Heivanti, teachers

can regularly devote significant time

towards individualized attention in the

classroom without it coming at the

expense of the rest of the class.

each child’s educational needs and the relationships that will result from these regular

meetings are perhaps the most beneficial aspects of this program.

Content Differentiation:

In addition to selecting their preferred modality of learning, teachers can adjust the

amount of material any given student is responsible for. (As mentioned, students can

opt to keep their VoiceThread recordings private between them and the teacher to

prevent any discomfort about their ability or modifications.)

Step 3 - Comprehension

Comprehension is achieved through following 2 processes:

Google Doc Summary (or any online suite alternative):

Students maintain an ongoing summary of the storyline on a Google Doc that is shared

with the teacher. The benefit is twofold:

Students are forced to think broadly and synthesize the verses and commentary

they are learning into a story that actually occurred. Particularly with developing

minds, students translate the verses and commentary but fail to comprehend

what they have read, let alone merge the information into the overall schema.

Composing an ongoing story assures that students digest and formulate isolated

facts into the tapestry of the storyline.

Using an active document platform like Google Docs, the teacher can maintain

an ongoing dialogue with each student, provide formative feedback and prompt

deeper thinking.

Higher Order Thinking

To both broaden and deepen this experience, the summary component of our Chumash

odyssey is brought to life when students create first person narratives of the storyline.

Partially inspired by Rabbi Yosef Deutsch’s “Let My Nation Live” series as well as Gadi

Pollack’s “Desert Diaries”, students are prompted to experience the storyline through

the perspective of a character of their choice. Beyond challenging students to

synthesize the verses and commentary into a seamless story, the first person narrative

brings students into the story. Through expressing the conflict, drama and emotion of

the event through the eyes of their selected character, students experience the narrative

rather than simply mastering factoids.

Engaging the Chumash on this level leads students to higher order thinking, penetrating

questions and stimulates an affective experience. This. as well, is created on a Google

doc to ensure regular formative feedback and an ongoing dialogue.

The first person narrative can be launched in the Chumash classroom alone or brought

to a new level as an interdisciplinary project with the literature department. Through this

creative narrative, students are prompted to stretch their mind and imaginations to

experience the Chumash story in a real way and share that with others.

Spiraling Skill Reinforcement & Quizlet:

Heivanti balances both introducing

students to new skills while reinforcing

and expanding their fundamentals. New

skills are introduced and mastered

through learning and mastering each

new unit of Chumash as described in

the sections above. Fundamental skills

are expanded and reinforced and

mastered through spiraling review, as

detailed below.

This third component of the program focuses on shorashim, techiliot and sofeot (root

words, prefixes and suffixes):  A vital piece in reading and deciphering verses is the

ability to identify and translate each part of any given word. This has proven to be the an

eagerly anticipated activity in Heivanti thanks to the website Quizlet and a new feature

called quizlet.live:

Quizlet offers a variety of surprisingly fun and effective formats that enable students to

review independently. Quizlet.live, as sister website, enables students to compete in an

interactive team game that has gained unprecedented popularity here at CTA. The

result is the mastery of hundreds of keywords, prefixes and suffixes using relatively little

class time - all while having a blast!

Along the same lines, salient facts, characters, events and places are included in the

spiraling review. For this the website Kahoot is utilized. Kahoot, as well, has proven to

be a fun and effective way to commit material to memory.

Technical Success

Practice: Heivanti is comprised of several modalities of learning, each with their own

set of procedures and expectations. Planning, practicing and patience is necessary to

allow students to learn the different procedures and get accustomed to transitioning.

Technology: While every app used in this program is free, the program is only feasible

for schools with an up to date IT infrastructure and available technology for every

student (laptops or even Chromebooks are sufficient).

Organization: This program contains a few components. Utilizing an educational suite

platform like Google Classroom or Microsoft OneDrive will simplify the operation.

Areas for Further Expansion & Exploration

The current curriculum is designed to enable the learning and assessment of

skills and comprehension. While affect is stressed through the classroom

discussion and novelization components, a thorough and methodical approach to

ensuring students are achieving affective goals is beyond the scope of this

model.

Torah is absolutely infinite. The types of tools described above are powerful and

dynamic. The possibilities latent in an applying these tools to our Holy Torah are

endless.

This is a format that can easily be utilized for other text based Judaic courses like

Gemara and Navi. When adapting to other Judaic disciplines, the fundamental

goals of each course should inform the adjustments to the model.

Conclusion

While the general goals of our Judaic Studies courses have not changed, the means to

achieving them have. By utilizing the right balance of classroom, one-to-one attention,

and carefully selected technology, students benefit from both increased one-on-one

attention together with unmatched personalized learning.

There can be no more noble nor vital task than developing the next generation of Torah

learners and lovers. As Torah educators, it is incumbent upon us to utilize the most

powerful and effective tools available to us to achieve this sacred goal. It is my prayer

that the effort and creativity invested in the Heivanti method promote further innovations

and progress in this most Holy endeavor.